Some events are difficult to title because they refuse to remain one sort of event. This began as an attack, then became a rescue, then became a riot, then became an investigation, then became a flood. By the end, Thoral Reinhardt was surfing out of a drowned prisoner work camp on his shield, and I was forced to conclude that some battle reports require more than one category.
We went to Lightbranch because people had been taken there. That much, at least, was understood. What was less clear was whether the prisoners were being forced to work, changed into something, used to build an army, experimented upon, or all of those things in some horrible order. The day before, a smaller group had scouted the place and found a weakness in the wall. This meant we had a way in.
A way in is not the same as a safe way in.
The approach began along a road or path leading toward the camp. Around the outer wall stretched a wide ring of dust, perhaps two miles across, as if the place itself had been scraped raw and left that way. The guards were scattered, not arranged to stop an army from entering, but to keep prisoners from escaping. This meant we could make progress, but not quickly.
There was fighting from the start. Silver and Thoral were toward the front with swords and shields, where brave people and people with very solid equipment tend to stand. I was toward the back, where healers, note-takers, and those who prefer not to be immediately stabbed may perform valuable work. This gave me a useful view of the whole group. It did not give me a complete understanding of what was happening. These are not the same thing.
The enemies were difficult to categorize. Some had glowing white eyes. Some attacks seemed to matter. Some did not seem to matter enough. I do not yet know whether this was due to armor, magic, creature type, hidden defenses, poor aim, or the world being rude.
The battle moved in stops and surges. We would press forward, then someone’s armor would need to be restored. Someone would be wounded. Someone would be hit with a spell. I called upon the spirits to heal light wounds. I called upon the spirits to heal mortal wounds. I called upon the spirits to heal light wounds again. I began to suspect that “wounds” may need subcategories, including “manageable,” “urgent,” and “please stop acquiring more of these.”
When healing was not immediately required, I tried to help by cursing enemies with blindness. This seemed sensible. If one cannot prevent all swords, shields, and hostile spells, one may at least make it more difficult for the enemy to aim them at one’s friends. The enemies, unfortunately, used terrible words with terrible effects: Fear, Pain, Silence, Kneel, and Toxin. These are short words, which is unfair, because their consequences are not short at all.
Silver was struck with Pain in the gut and cried out, “OHHHHH, my endometriosis!” I recorded this because it was both alarming and impressively specific.
Several of our people were struck with toxins, including Silver, and the group scrambled to keep everyone moving. A battle is not only striking and blocking. It is also noticing who has stopped moving correctly, who is too far ahead, who is too far behind, who needs healing, who needs help, and who has suddenly disappeared. This last category became very important.
At one point, I looked across the group, trying to assess who needed aid, and realized Panlan was missing. This is a terrible discovery to make in the middle of a battle. Panlan had not merely stepped behind someone tall. He had been rifted away by some sort of enemy that appeared at the back of our group and took him. I did not see enough to categorize the enemy properly. I only knew that one of ours was gone.
We kept pressing forward because sometimes the only way to rescue someone is to survive the next few steps first. Rascal attempted to sneak around toward the enemy’s back, which seemed very much like Rascal and also very useful if successful. Then Vaelien was taken in the same rifting way, and our count of missing adventurers became two. Two is too many. One is also too many. I would like to formally propose that the acceptable number of companions stolen by sudden hostile rifts is zero.
Eventually we reached the fenced camp and found the weakness that had been scouted the day before. Through it, we entered the outer wall and pushed into the inner area. The deeper we went, the worse the place felt. This was not merely a camp. It was a place where people had been held, used, and changed by fear. When we reached the inner area, Romulus was overwhelmed by the despair and intensity of the place. He fell to his knees.
I do not know how to write that properly. Some wounds are not on the body. Some places have weight. Some histories press down. I saw Romulus kneel, and for a moment the battle felt larger than the enemies in front of us. Then the battle continued, because battles are rude that way.
We freed prisoners as we went, and this created what I believe must be called a prison riot. I am generally in favor of prisoners becoming not-prisoners. However, newly freed people running in all directions while a fight is still happening makes documentation and survival both more complicated. Some prisoners fled. Some added confusion. Some gave us information and helped guide our next steps. The whole place became motion: adventurers, guards, prisoners, shouted warnings, spells, weapons, dust, and my own attempts to keep track of all of it from the back.
Eventually, we fought through another door and into a stronger hold or inner building of some kind. Inside, we found Panlan and Vaelien on metal medical tables, with a third person there as well, unconscious. I did not like this room. I did not like the tables. I did not like the papers. I especially did not like that there were papers, because papers mean someone had decided the things happening there were procedures.
We healed and recovered our missing companions. Panlan and Vaelien were returned to us, which was a relief so sharp it nearly cut. I gathered every piece of paper I could find: every page, every note, every scrap that might explain what had been done, what had been planned, and how to categorize the harm. Evidence matters. Records matter. If someone writes down how to hurt people, then someone else must take those writings and use them to stop the hurting.
Silver burned the building.
I supported this decision.
The third person on the tables eventually told us he was a confused farmer. He said they needed food. Then he said, “corn…” and pointed toward the mass of people. This created several possible interpretations, and I did not have time to sort them properly. Did he mean the prisoners needed corn? Did he mean the people were like corn? Did he mean there was corn somewhere? Was corn the solution, the problem, the memory, or the direction?
I wrote: CORN????
This remains one of my more accurate notes.
By then, prisoners were fleeing through the dust fields, and soldiers were hunkered down in the Keep. The whole camp was unraveling. We had found our missing companions, gathered papers, freed prisoners, burned the place of experimentation, and were still not entirely done.
Then we heard the water.
At first, this did not fit. Battle has many sounds: metal, shouting, spell incants, boots, breath, pain, orders, confusion. Water is not usually one of the primary sounds of a fight in a dusty prison camp. Then we saw it above us.
A lake.
Romulus had dropped a lake on the place.
I need you to understand that I do not mean this poetically. I do not mean there was a great deal of water like a lake. I mean there was a lake where a lake had no previous business being, and it was coming down. This was tactically impressive. It was also extremely wet.
At that point, everyone needed to leave very quickly. Some of our group rifted out. Some used Glimmerling Trickster ways to get themselves home. I was among those able to escape by such magic, which is good, because I do not believe my ledger is waterproof.
Thoral Reinhardt could not leave that way, because Watchers cannot rift. This seems inconvenient under normal circumstances and especially inconvenient when Romulus has placed a lake above your current location. Thoral solved the problem by using his shield as a surfboard.
There are sentences one does not expect to write in a formal report. That is one of them.
He rode the enormous waves out of the drowned camp, shield beneath him, water carrying him where magic could not. I had already known Thoral was strong and steady at the front of a fight. I had labeled him Nouget because beneath the hard outside is a soft center of kindness and help. I now must add: capable of emergency shield-surfing. This may require a new label.
Important conclusions from Lightbranch:
- A way in is not the same as a safe way in.
- Some enemies require better categorization before one can know what will hurt them.
- Glowing white eyes are rarely comforting.
- Healing from the back of a battle provides a useful but incomplete view.
- Fear, Pain, Silence, Kneel, and Toxin are all very rude things to do to people.
- The acceptable number of companions stolen by hostile rifts is zero.
- Prison riots are both morally satisfying and logistically complicated.
- Medical tables in prison camps are bad signs.
- Papers should be collected before buildings are burned, if possible.
- “Corn” may be a clue, a request, a warning, or all three.
- Romulus can drop a lake on a problem.
- Watchers cannot rift.
- Thoral Reinhardt can surf a shield out of a flood.
- My ledger needs waterproofing.
I began this expedition thinking we were attacking a camp. We did attack it. We also rescued people, lost people, recovered them, gathered evidence, burned a building, fled a falling lake, and learned that a shield may become a boat if the situation becomes sufficiently unreasonable.
The world continues to produce new categories faster than I can label them.
With damp pages and sincere alarm,
Ledger
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